Based in West Yorkshire, Quair Books is run by Dr F L Philip:  following my undergraduate degree I worked for one of London’s best-loved rare and antiquarian booksellers, before returning to academia to pursue an MA (in Gender Studies) and funded PhD.  I subsequently worked as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Leeds, including as Research Fellow on the AHRC-funded Pararchive/ YARN Project and two collaborative projects with Rape Crisis England & Wales (RCEW).  My thesis focused on the interwar output of the little known modernist author and impresario, Bryher, and the experimental film group, POOL (1927-33).  It worked at the juncture of literary and cinematic modernisms, exploring the creative negotiations Bryher, and POOL, deployed in order to represent and speak as dissident sexual subjectivities – mapping and unpacking their various ‘queer articulations’. 

I’m a graduate of YABS (York Antiquarian Book Seminar) (2018) and was interviewed in the Antiques Trade Gazette’s annual Books, Maps & Works on Paper supplement (2022) for its ‘The Next Generation’ article.

Where to find us

You can find us at book fairs across the UK, as well as online via our AbeBooks and Biblio catalogues and through our Lists and Newsletter.  We don’t have public premises.  We’ll be standing at the following fairs in 2023:

PBFA Harrogate Premier Fair, 17-18 March

PBFA Oxford Premier Fair, 22-23 April

PBFA London International Antiquarian Book Fair, 20-21 May

PBFA Brockholes Preston Premier Fair, 6-7 July

York National Book Fair, September 14-15 September